English Journey
by cedricsowner
Summary: Set in the very early days of Winston's and Chance's partnership. Guerrero has only just come in. And now it's time for the first overseas operation... FINAL CHAPTER UP
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

For a brief moment Winston fought the urge to yell. Then he remembered that he wasn't a cop anymore. There was no superior in the room next door who could send him to another useless waste of time anger management seminar. He could yell as much and as long as he pleased now. No more entries into his personal file.

No more personal file.

Definitely one of the perks of his new life.

One of the downsides, however, was currently sitting in _his _office chair, feet propped up on _his _desk, and munching away on _his _egg salad.

"NO WAY!", Winston yelled to his heart's delight. "There's absolutely no way we're gonna take this job!"

"Dude, I don't get it. You two do pro bono all the time. What's the difference now?" Guerrero finished off the egg salad and placed the empty plastic box on the table next to his feet. Was he intentionally turning it clockwise so that the label that marked it as Winston's was clearly visible?

You bet he did.

"He's got a point", Chance spoke up from his corner of the room, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking from Winston to Guerrero and back again. "This woman, what's her name…"

"Abigail Porter", Winston grumbled.

Guerrero grinned, recognizing Chance's maneuver for what it was: A test of how far Winston had inwardly already accepted the idea of taking that job, although outwardly he still fought it so fiercely. The fact that he had memorized the woman's name although Guerrero had only mentioned it once was a good sign and helped Chance decide on his next steps.

"Yeah, right, Abby." Chance nodded, pretending to remember only just now. "She might very well be in danger. And the father is going to cover our travel expenses, so no drawing on our capital stock. The mortgage is safe. Where's the problem?"

Winston squinted his eyes. This was not the first time his newly found business partner had shown remarkable problems memorizing stuff. Was it a health issue, thanks to the numerous times he had received blows to the head? Was it because he didn't care? Or was he playing games with him?

The past three months had given no indication whatsoever that he couldn't trust Chance. But three months wasn't exactly much time to get to know a person. And the arrival of that lowlife Guerrero about six weeks into this business relationship hadn't made things easier either.

Speaking of…

"We're not going to take the job…" Winston was talking very slowly now, as if addressing a child "... because I'm dead sure that _you_…" he pointed at Guerrero and abruptly raised his voice "…have an ulterior motive!"

Guerrero raised his eyebrows at him: _And that is a bad thing because…?_

Chance wordlessly shrugged his shoulders: _Yeah, most likely, what can I say?_

Winston threw his hands heavenwards in despair. What had he gotten himself into? Mumbling expletives, he exited the room, slamming the door so violently that the glass rattled in its frame.

"Winston!" Swift ex-assassin steps behind him, catching up with him way before he had made it to the elevator.

"We do owe him this, you know. Guerrero takes money issues very seriously."

And their last job hadn't exactly been profitable. In the end they hadn't been able to pay him. Awkward situation and potentially dangerous. Truth to be told, Chance had expected all sorts of retaliations from his friend. Guerrero asking them to protect someone, however, had taken him by surprise.

Doing a small-time crook like Ax Garrett a favor was totally unlike Guerrero. Winston was absolutely right, there had to be some sort of ulterior motive. Chance just hoped it didn't involve killing someone. Guerrero and he had a very clear agreement. Blackmailing, hacking, counterfeiting yes, including certain disciplinary sanctions – you just couldn't run a business of Guerrero's kind without a few reminders of whom you were dealing with thrown in every now and then – but NO contract killing anymore.

As far as Chance knew Guerrero had kept his side of the deal so far. And up till three months ago he would have never wasted a single thought on the possibility that he could break his word, once given.

But then they had fought, in the cabin, for Katherine's life. Although the bruises of their clash were long gone, the remnants of this conflict still lingered between them, like some sort of slightly festering wound. The kind that looks okay on the outside but hurts when you touch it. They needed to resolve this somehow. But the idea of actually _talking_ this over with Guerrero… ugh…

_Well, _Chance thought sarcastically, _maybe in England, over a good cup of tea. _

"Whatever Guerrero's true motive may be, that woman…"

"Abigail", Winston added almost automatically.

"Yeah, Abby…" Chance fought the urge to grin "…she does need our help. Ax Garrett pissed off the wrong people. He needs to be sure that his daughter is safe while he's sorting his mess out. It might be just me, but isn't that in accordance with our mission statement?" He gave Winston one of his boyish smiles.

"She's a criminal's daughter", Winston snapped, actually much more irked by his partner's newest display of sudden memory loss than by their – sigh – new client's parentage.

"That's not her fault." Suddenly Chance grew very serious. "And she doesn't even know it anyway. She's been living in England for most of her life, never met her father."

"So how are we going to play it?", Winston asked, defeated.

"Since Abby is part of an Open University group on an excursion through the north of England I don't see many problems blending in."

"_Open University excursion?_" So far nobody had mentioned this minute detail to Winston. He hated group tours! One rainy spring weekend years ago his wife had bullied him into a bird watching tour in Maine. He had managed to get kicked out of the group on Saturday after getting into a fight with one of the group members, an unbearably arrogant jerk… and right in time for his 49ers game… but that was another story.

"Excursion?", he repeated, breathing in deeply to get enough air for another round of yelling.

"Yeah, dude, we're seriously going to brush up your general knowledge on English history." Guerrero was sitting on the leather couch in the lobby, right behind them. Winston hadn't heard him coming.

"We're expected in York tomorrow evening." Of course he had already booked a flight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

_**A/N: To visually support this story I'm going to post a couple of pictures via my twitter account. The idea is that you get glimpses of what the boys see on their tour through England. You don't need an account yourself to view the pictures, it is open to the public. Just google "cedricsowner" and "twitter". My account is the one with the raccoon, officially belonging to "Cedric S. Owner" ;-) **_

"Watch out!" Chance lunged forward, grabbed the young woman by the waist and pulled her backwards on the sidewalk just in time before she could get run over by one of those pink and white double-deck buses that seemed to be all over York. Apparently the city was big on public transportation.

"You alright?" He quickly helped her to her feet. "You better look right, left, right before crossing. They're driving on the wrong side of the road here, you know?", he told her, smiling his best boy scout smile.

"Well, I _should_ know", she replied, brushing invisible dirt off her long skirt. "I've spent most of my life in this country. Thanks for saving me." She smiled back at him, but it was a sad, resigned smile, and it didn't reach her dark green eyes.

"Neal Avon", Chance introduced himself with the fake identity he had adopted for this job. "At your service."

"Are you here to take part in an Open University excursion?", she asked, obviously astonished. "I think I saw your name on the list of participants. You enrolled last minute, didn't you?"

"Guilty as charged – I take it you're participating too, then?"

"Abigail Porter. Nice to meet you, Mr. Avon."

Chance took her outstretched hand and shook it. This had gone remarkably well. His original plan had been to "accidentally" bump into her somewhere on the way to the excursion group's first meeting, cause her to drop her purse or whatever, help her gathering up her things and thus initiate a starting point for closer acquaintance. To protect her properly he needed her to tolerate him near at hand. Saving her life, of course, was a much better way to establish that than simply gathering up fallen stuff. Sometimes coincidence played right into your hands.

"So, what's an American doing on a British Open University excursion?", she asked, looking right, left, right this time before crossing the road. The wind slightly tugged at her long red hair.

"My buddies and me decided we wanted to do something different this year. Can't always go paragliding…" They had decided that three Americans on the excursion, all enrolled at the last minute, all claiming not to know each other, was way too suspicious. Better they admitted openly that they were friends, that made lying about the rest easier.

"So you're not alone on this trip", she stated, and again she sounded sad.

"Yeah, we're like the three musketeers – all for one and one for all", he joked.

For a moment her eyes rested thoughtfully on him, then she smiled again, and this time it did reach her eyes.

… … …

Guerrero liked taking a look around on his own when in a new town. He knew a guy or two in York, but nothing with deep roots. All the more important that he had a basic idea of the city and its inner workings. He had spent most of the day getting familiar with its environment, now it was time to meet the excursion group.

In person, that is. He already knew quite a bit about the various participants. People were just too careless with their online accounts. So far nothing out of the ordinary had caught his attention, but that didn't mean much. The way people carried themselves in real life was often a more reliable indicator that something was off than a few visits to slightly seedy porn websites.

The first meeting was set to take place on the steps of York Minster's West Front, where the main entrance was located. Well, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a cathedral, should it? Guerrero turned left and walked down another narrow, strangely curved street cluttered with one tea room after another, pubs, souvenir shops and the odd antique shop thrown in here and there. The city was putting on quite a show for the tourists, good lord, could all these chocolate shops in utmost proximity really…

Guerrero stopped dead in his tracks. There it was, the Minster. Definitely unmissable, its huge central tower loomed over the street, a giant structure of massive gray stones. For a few moments Guerrero just stood and stared, studying the vast structure that pictures had done no justice. The central tower had no spire, but nevertheless it looked complete. Two long and narrow perpendicular windows on each side provided it with a strict, no-nonsense appearance, the battlement on top supporting that impression even more.

As Guerrero stepped out of the street that had led him to the Minster, he got his first full view of the south side of the building. More battlements, above them niches containing figures and blind arches, cut short by gables with lofty pinnacles on top. Guerrero couldn't take his eyes off the walls and ornaments. There was nothing playful about them. Although created in different centuries they all emitted an air of sternness, of severity – without ever becoming cruel shove-it-down-your-throat displays of dictatorial claim to power so often found in 20th century public architecture, such as in pre-1945 Germany or Russia during Stalin's reign.

This was much more subtle. Through hundreds of years the archbishops of York had found themselves in constant strife with those of Canterbury, contending for power and influence. As leading figures of one of the richest cities in England they had commanded armies against the Scots and, at times, initiated rebellions against the king. This building clearly expressed their ambition and the pride they had taken in their deeds. Guerrero couldn't help but feel a certain kinship with the Minster.

… … …

The first meeting of the excursion group was rather unspectacular. Winston noticed that Chance had managed to make a positive first contact with the client. So far so good, although it still gave him the creeps knowing that he had used the same charming smile to lull his targets into a false and in the end lethal feeling of safety.

They listened to one of the students reading a presentation word for word, sentence by sentence, from his notes, a rather lengthy narration of the Minster's history, followed by a guided tour through the cathedral that lasted an hour longer than originally planned. The guide was excited that for once he didn't have to deal with disinterested teenagers but highly motivated students of history.

The two organizers of the excursion, Professor Simpson and Professor Percy, however, behaved a bit strangely. The Minster was full of medieval stuff, but what seemed to attract the professors' attention most were a couple of modern statues above the main entrance. They were meant to represent saints, without heads, because in the times of the Reformation many sculptures in the cathedral had had their heads hacked off by zealous Protestants. The headless saints were all holding golden plates in their hands, in different positions, giving signals, like boy scouts. According to the guide the message spelt out "Christ is here", but not too long ago the statues had had to be removed for a short time while a movie was filmed inside the Minster and the people that put them back apparently had known zilch about boy scout signal language. For a week the message had been "Chris is there". The professors exchanged very meaningful looks at this information.

Their quarters, that they finally got to see properly rather late in the evening, weren't exactly Hilton quality. Winston couldn't believe he was supposed to share shower and toilet with six strangers of both genders and kept complaining about the saggy bed, but Chance and Guerrero had definitely seen worse.

Nevertheless Chance suddenly woke in the middle of the night. Winston was watching over Abby, he had willingly taken the first shift, claiming he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. Chance had another two hours left before it was his turn, but something had alerted his instincts.

There it was again. Sounds on the streets, but not close by. Odd sounds…


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.**

Winston would have never noticed Chance leaving if he hadn't coincidentally looked out the window the very moment his business partner crossed the building in front of the _hall of residence_ where they were accommodated. Where the hell was he going? What was he up to? He seemed to be heading straight for the Minster.

Pressing his lips together, Winston checked his cell phone although he was pretty sure it hadn't signaled. No message. Chance hadn't tried contacting him. That could only mean one thing: He didn't want him to know where he was going.

No shit, Sherlock. But why?

Come to think of it, from the very beginning Chance had been very supportive of that lowlife Guerrero's request that they take this job. The two could be in cahoots…

Winston tried to unthink that thought, but of course it now wouldn't leave him alone. He believed Chance that he was done with contract killing, but the Minster was full of valuable objects and their finances, although they had been in the business for only three months yet, were scarce, mildly put. Maybe Chance thought with a quick B & E he could provide them with a probably soon much needed shot in the arm.

That was the most harmless explanation Winston could think of. Others were a lot more sinister and involved him being wrong about Chance's recent reformation.

Sudden rustling and grunting inside Abby's room interrupted his musings and made him retreat further into the shadows. A moment later her door moved and out she stepped, clad in nothing but a strangely out of fashion night gown (From whom did she inherit it? Her Grandma?). Barefooted, she padded to the toilet.

Winston already felt like some sort of a creep, watching a woman go to the toilet in the middle of the night, so he tried not to listen to the typical sounds people produced while staying there. What he couldn't ignore, though, was a sudden, loud CRACK sound, followed by a strange, metallic wheezing and then the rushing of water.

Lots of water.

… … …

Chance hadn't even thought of contacting Winston. He had briefly debated waking Guerrero, but even that idea had been wiped away by his growing curiosity in the last few minutes. The sound that had attracted his attention was the distant sound of a horn, increasingly becoming louder.

A horn, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a city. Of course Chance wanted to know what was behind that.

The distance between their quarters and the Minster was short, Chance covered it in less than five minutes. Street lighting was poor around this time of night, apparently the municipal county figured people should be in bed after Last Call in the pubs. Silent and smooth as a cat he slinked through an ancient Roman town gate and down a narrow street lined with pubs, leading directly to the cathedral. The horn sound, however, was coming from somewhere behind the building.

Becoming almost invisible, melting with the shadows the huge church was casting in the dim gray light, Chance approached a magnificent looking mansion in a park like garden. He didn't catch much of the building, though, since his attention was instantly drawn to a group of people and horses, barely perceptible in the darkness.

Chance halted and squinted his eyes, wishing he had brought a pair of binoculars. The horses looked stout and surprisingly small, more like big ponies. They were surrounded and ridden by men in the strangest attire – linen undershirts and tunics. Everybody was equipped with spears, short swords and shields. Chance could clearly see golden bulls on their shield bosses.

Was this one of those reenactment groups he had heard about? York, back then called Eboracum, had a long Roman history, beginning with its founding as a Roman fortress in AD 71 . Constantine the Great had been proclaimed Augustus there in AD 306, which was why there was a modern bronze statue of him right next to the Minster.

Maybe some sort of show for the tourists. But there were no onlookers… Probably the dress rehearsal. If they didn't want an audience it made sense practicing in the middle of the night. Chance had seen placards advertising various thematic tours of the city and a mystery festival in the ruins of St Mary's Abbey. What was odd, at least to Chance, who had never seen a reenactment group in action before, was the state of the men's costumes and the men themselves. They all looked terribly exhausted, their clothes and shields were damaged, some were holding broken swords. One of the horses was limping pitifully. It was all outdone, however, by the expression on their haggard faces. They truly looked like men who had seen war.

Most unnerving, though, was the fact that Chance could only see the soldiers and the horses from the knee up. Damn poor lighting!

The sounds of the bells of the Minster reminded him that it was almost time to release Winston from his sentry duty. Quietly he slipped away again, back to their quarters.

Where, in the meantime, all hell had broken loose.

At least on their floor, but judging from the light in the various windows, the whole building was awake.

"She broke the toilet handle and apparently that caused the flushing to go into nonstop mode", an unnerved Winston explained. "I wanted to call a plumber, but _he _said he…"

"Dude, I AM fixing it", Guerrero, doing something behind the toilet with a wrench, snapped.

"I'm so sorry! I'm so terribly sorry!", a very pale and very shaken Abigail kept repeating whenever one of the group members accommodated on the floor peeked into the corridor to check how much longer they would have to endure all this ruckus at this unholy hour.

"IT IS OKAY!", both Winston and Guerrero told her, in unison. Judging from their sharp tone, she must have been doing this "I'm sorry"-litany for quite a while now.

"Maybe a cup of tea would be a good idea", Chance suggested, trying to cushion the impact of Winston and Guerrero's words, but Winston with his "I've been a cop for twenty years FREEZE" voice and Guerrero with his "Drop your gun, hand me the money NOW" voice didn't leave much room for interpretation. Chance would have needed a truck full of feathers to reduce the blow they had just delivered to Abby's already careening composure.

"No, I… no…" She bolted away from Chance, fled into her room, quite obviously ready to finally let the tears flow that she had fought so desperately to hold back ever since she had broken the darn handle.

Chance sighed. He felt sorry for her, but at the moment there was nothing he could do to make her feel better. Sometimes people needed to be alone with their misery.

And anyways, he was more urgently needed right here.

"Shouldn't you better adjust that screw over there?"

"Dude, isn't there some vending machine around you can plunder?"

Predictably, Winston exploded. "Oh, funny, another crack at my size. You know what? This is getting old! Think of something else!

"The really good ones are yet to come, dude."

Chance quickly checked if any of them was armed.

When the toilet finally stopped flushing a couple of minutes later, they were all exhausted. Winston and Guerrero retreated to bed and Chance took up his shift, which luckily passed by without any further incidents. Eventually even the sobs from Abby's room died down. In the early morning, however, when Guerrero came to release Chance, he didn't go straight to bed. He switched on his computer and dug around a bit. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for, although it wasn't exactly what he had expected:

_In 1953, a young apprentice plumber was installing a new central heating system in the cellar of the Treasurer's House behind York Minster. Suddenly he heard a horn and then, coming out of a wall, appeared a disheveled troop of Roman soldiers. They marched through the wall into the cellar, heading in the direction of York Minster. What was most horrifying to the poor plumber, though, was that he could only see the soldiers from the knee up. Apparently they were walking along the old Roman road, 15 inches below the cellar floor. Thanks to all sorts of rubble and organic material accumulating wherever people live, ground levels in general tend to rise through the centuries. Judging from the golden bull on the shield bosses that the young man could describe in detail, the soldiers stemmed from the Legio Nona Hispana, the 9th legion, which had been stationed at Eboracum but around AD 117 suddenly disappeared from all official records._

_Jeez, _Chance thought._ That reenactment group has done a damn good job of recreating them._


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

The next day brought a visit to Castle Howard. Judging from the name Chance expected a colossal fortress with massive towers, thick walls, arrow loops for archers, a drawbridge, that kind of thing.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Castle Howard was one of the grandest residences Chance had ever seen – a giant, palace-like house in the middle of a park that included a private lake and a private forest on a hill. 10.000 acres!

"The term _castle_ was often used for English country houses in the 16th century and after, probably to underline their owner's wealth and power", the student who had been assigned to give a presentation on the house and grounds, explained.

Looking around and taking in the immense vastness of the estate, Chance could only agree with that. Wealth and power, yep, definitely. With their money the Howards had shaped the complete landscape around them. Hell, even the village they had passed on their way up here belonged to the premises.

Winston felt sorry for the poor student. He was almost seventy, had spent his life being an engineer to provide for his family. Now, after his working life was finally over he had enrolled at Open University to fulfill his lifelong dream of studying history. This was his first presentation ever and he had obviously spent lots of time preparing.

Unlike the first student back at York Minster (who had been in his mid-twenties, seemed to have experience in a university environment and thus definitely should have been able to do better) the pensioned engineer was trying to speak without constantly reading from his notes. Granted, he was looking at them about every five seconds, but at least he was trying. The professors, however, who were supposed to give him feedback and help him get better at this, hardly paid him any attention.

They were standing in front of a huge fountain, the so-called Atlas Fountain, and the professors seemed to be a lot more interested in that than anything the student had to say. Winston wasn't exactly taken by the thing – there was a huge guy in the middle carrying a globe on his shoulders and all around naked guys spitting water at him through strangely curved horn things. What was the big deal?

"That's Atlas, carrying the heaven, here depicted in ball shape to symbolize the whole cosmos. The sea gods around him are cooling him with water from their triton shells, to support him in his hard work." Guerrero, munching on an apple, had suddenly appeared by his side.

"Wiseass", Winston snarled. He bet that lowlife had done research on that fountain thing with the sole aim to make him feel inferior. Why else should he know anything about Greek mythology and shit?

One of the professors almost fell into the fountain in the attempt to take a closer look at the Atlas statue in the middle of the basin.

"The grounds surrounding the house were designed following the principles of the English Landscape Park", the student explained. "The area around the fountain where we're standing right now is a formal garden, but the whole rest, the lake, the forest, the rolling lawns set against groves of trees, the Greek temples and statues scattered in between… all that presents an idealized view of nature, with emphasis on visual axes. The idea is to make it look like nature, but more beautiful. The owners wanted visitors to walk along a sloping path and suddenly be presented with an overwhelming _view_. When industrialization came some members of the gentry even sued railway companies because trains going past their premises ruined their view." The student took a deep breath. Bloody hell, when had he been so nervous last time? "English Landscape Parks were developed to create a contrast to the more formal, symmetrical Garden à la française", he continued.

At that, Chance had to laugh. All this, to stick it to the French? The Brits really didn't do things by half!

After the presentation they were allowed to explore the grounds on their own for a bit. Chance followed Abby. She was apparently trying to be alone, judging from the way she broke from the group at a rapid pace as soon as the presentation was over. He let himself fall back, concentrating on just keeping an eye on her. She walked up a rather steep hill, the path lined with old fruit trees left and right. Chance knew from the map he had bought at the entrance that the top of the hill bore the grounds' old water reservoir, a huge basin with a rim broad enough to sit on. Which Abby promptly did.

Hm, after last night's events maybe she should stay away from water for a while?

Waving hello in a very clichéd American manner he approached her and sat down on the rim, too.

"This is called the Polar Bear Walk", she said, pointing down the path she had just walked up. Perfect example of the _view _the student had talked about.

"Don't know why, though", she continued before Chance could ask. "Maybe because you can be alone up here, just like a polar bear in an ice field."

Chance stifled a sigh. Sad women were so immensely difficult to deal with.

"Or maybe they just liked the sound of it. They like to be a bit eccentric, those Brits, don't they? Just look at what they have for breakfast!"

At this, Abby started laughing. So many years in this country and she still was no fan of baked beans and black pudding either.

… … …

Winston had retreated to a secluded place, too. The Temple of the Four Winds, another mock Ancient Greek thing, was erected right on the edge of the park, overlooking the countryside. Even Winston had to concede, not bad for a garden shed. With a cool beer and a portable TV this could be a pretty nice place. More importantly at the moment, however, was the fact that he had a very strong cell phone signal up here.

Call charges were a bitch, but he just needed to know… Looking around, checking as thoroughly as possible that no one was around, he typed in the number of his old police buddy Al. "Name's Ax Garrett", Winston told him. "He seems to have come under fire lately… I'd like a couple more details."

Guerrero, keeping an eye on the young student who had given the presentation in York – What was someone who had spent four previous terms at Cambridge suddenly doing at the Open University? And why had his presentation been so abysmal? – coincidentally looked up from New River Bridge and saw Winston making a telephone call standing on the steps of the Temple of the Four Winds.

The walrus didn't like walking far and hadn't shown any interest in landscape art or architecture yet. What was he doing out there? The only explanation Guerrero could think of was that he didn't want to be overheard. He decided to snitch his phone at the next opportunity.

Just then, as if on cue, his own cell signaled, and apparently so did Winston's. A message from Chance: _In house now. spout at reservoir sudly switched on, drying now._

That woman and water!


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

Abigail Porter was torn. On the one hand she was wearing a white blouse with frills and a dark blue skirt. She would have made a great waitress at Castle Howard's Café, the only thing missing was the embroidered apron. Of course she was grateful that the staff had lent her a spare uniform, but still… this outfit made it very clear to everyone at first sight that she had messed up again. She could just as well wear a sign saying "I'm an idiot", taped to her back.

On the other hand… her gaze wandered to Neal Avon, a couple of seats in front of her. He was currently wearing a dark green overall, a courtesy from Castle Howard's gardeners. He had changed clothes in a secluded corner of the walled rose garden, typically male thinking, why going inside when you could just as well quickly hop behind a hedge – what was all the fuss about that woman were always making?

Well, Abby wasn't complaining. This slightly troglodyte attitude had provided her (who had been changing in one of the second floor staff rooms in the former Coach House) with her own personal _view _of an upper body that could have inspired the artists that had created all those pseudo-Greek statues scattered all over the premises. My, did that man have a chest! Well-defined muscles which somehow didn't look as if he had gotten them from long afternoons in the fitness studio. They seemed… real… as if acquired through physically demanding work, not artificially designed weights. What was he doing for a living again? And the intricate tattoo… For a short moment, Abby allowed herself to imagine running her fingertips along its fine curves and twists…

She decided having gotten wet at the reservoir was not that bad after all. Sometimes being a worthless klutz did have its perks.

… … …

Outside the excursion bus' window the North York Moors seemed to be stretching endlessly towards the horizon, a vast sea of reddish heather, dotted with black and white sheep. Weatherworn gray stone walls lined the narrow roads up and down the region's hills.

"All Creatures Great and Small", the old TV series about veterinary surgeon James Herriot, had been filmed here. Winston remembered secretly enjoying to watch the main character as he visited lonely farm after lonely farm to help the animals and, often enough, their owners. In deepest winter, in summer heat, in heavy rain… no matter the time of day or night, he had been out there to do the right thing. Of course Winston would have never admitted that secret pleasure to his buddies at SFPD.

Right now he wondered if back then the seed had been planted for his later actions, for his tendency to ignore his own interests when he felt someone could be saved. Not always just a victim, but also, sometimes, an offender. As little patience as he had with lowlife rats such as Guerrero, he was very well aware of the fact that not everyone doing business out in the shadows had deliberately chosen to lead that kind of life.

Like that young girl he had let go a month or two before the Waters ordeal. He had had her dead to rights for a B&E, but had he hauled her in, she'd have ended up in juvie prison. As if that had ever helped anyone. What was her name again? Ames… Maybe she'd make good use of this one last chance.

Speaking of…

Winston darkly looked at the display of his mobile, read the information Al had texted him one more time. The message left little room for interpretation: Ax Garrett was not positioned at all on the receiving end of a gangster conglomerate's retaliation campaign. On the contrary, he was currently _building up one_ himself. And goddamn it, thanks to Guerrero they were making sure he needn't worry about his daughter!

Winston's first impulse was to confront Chance with this new development. He wanted him to see what an amoral bastard his so-called friend was, how he was playing them, probably in exchange for a significant amount of money from Ax. On second thought, however, Winston hesitated. For whatever reason, Chance seemed strangely attached to that devious snake. What if he decided to break from Winston and stick with Guerrero?

Well then he wasn't worth the effort. Winston knew enough about him by now to easily deliver his ass to the police.

But…

Staring out at the moors with no trees, no grass, no flowers or bushes to speak of, just a seemingly endless sea of heather, blackish mud pools and solitary sheep he suddenly found it hard to imagine a life without Chance in it.

Son of a bitch, he had charmed him, too!

Not sure what to make out of that realization, Winston kept staring off into the distance as they slowly got closer to the North Sea.

… …. …

At Whitby Abbey, their afternoon's destination, it was Abby's turn to give a presentation. To Chance's surprise she didn't rely on her notes at all. In fact she barely glanced at them. She positioned all excursion group members along one of the dilapidated walls of the former monastery's ruins so that the wall would amplify her voice and then started speaking, freely and confidently, as if she had never broken a toilet or gotten into the way of the spout of a 19th century water reservoir.

"Most of you surely have already heard about the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD. Those of you who have read Bede know that according to him the Synod was about the correct calculation of the Easter date. The Roman missionaries had spread a different method in England than the Irish and in 664 King Oswiu of Northumbria was supposed to decide which one was the correct and thus binding one. He decided in favor of the Roman version." Here Abby made a dramatic pause. Chance couldn't help but be intrigued by the passion with which she spoke. Where was this sudden change in behavior coming from?

"Well, Bede had good reasons to present the Easter question as the central point of the Synod. First of all he finished his Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum in 731 AD, almost seventy years later and thus naturally wrote from a different point of view than an eyewitness would have had. Aside from that he had, prior to the Historia, written a book about the correct calculation of Easter in which he also argued in favor of the Roman method. By presenting the Synod the way he did, he supported his own writings."

For the life of him Chance could not imagine anyone getting passionate about the correct way to calculate Easter. Granted, in the 7th century maybe, but why was Abby speaking with so much vigor?

"Instead of solely trusting Bede's report, like many historians still do, we should better take a look at the political situation in Northumbria in 664. King Oswiu was the ruler of Bernicia and Deira, two huge kingdoms. His son Alchfrith ruled Deira as a sub-king. Wulfhere, ruler of the kingdom of Mercia was threatening Oswiu's position. Oswiu desperately needed Kent and Wessex as allies. But while Oswiu followed the Irish tradition of Catholic practices, the rulers of Kent and Wessex followed Rome's guidance. So did his own wife Eanflead, his third one, who was from Kent."

Chance closely watched Abby. Her body had tensed up as soon as she had started talking about Oswiu and Alchfrith. Strange, very strange.

"Now here comes the interesting part: Very shortly before the Synod Alchfrith had turned away from his Irish upbringing and openly declared from now on he would follow Rome's methods. Now, while his father was trying to fight off Mercia, Alchfrith had some problems of his own: His father was beginning to favor his half-brother Ecgfrith, it looked as if he was going to make him heir to the throne and probably even hand Deira over to him. Alchfrith was from Oswiu's first marriage while Ecgfrith was from his current one. He had all the support of his mother and her people, while Alchfrith was alone."

By now Abby was practically shaking whilst she spoke, and not from nervousness. Chance recognized anger. Was she sympathizing with that guy with the unspeakable name, Alchfrith? Was she angry at Oswiu, someone who had died more than a thousand years ago?

"Judging from what little sources we have Alchfrith seems to have tried to weaken his father's position by forcing him into judging over the Easter calculation. Oswiu had been brought up in the Irish tradition. He was close with Irish bishop Colman. It was very unlikely that he would decide in favor of the Roman tradition, but if he openly declared his adherence to the Irish method, he'd alienate his wife and the rulers of Kent and Wessex, which he couldn't really afford, not with Mercia knocking on his doors. There's always a difference between doing something quietly, like Oswiu and Eanflead must have practiced their different religious methods over years, or declaring openly that you're favoring a certain way and rejecting another."

_Damn good plan_, Chance thought. Talk about caught between a rock and a hard place.

"But Alchfrith's plan failed." At this point, Abby suddenly sounded sad. "Oswiu decided for Rome and quickly let the pope know what he had done. The pope was overjoyed that a mighty ruler had acknowledged the Roman method as the right one and supported Oswiu when he applied for a certain priest to be made Archbishop of Canterbury. This proved to Wessex and Kent that Oswiu was still "the man" – he had managed to secure his position while Alchfrith subsequently disappeared from all records… he most likely was killed after openly rebelling against his father."

At this last sentence Abby's voice almost broke. Chance kept his eyes trained on her as she accepted the other excursion members' praise and answered a couple of additional questions. This thing between Oswiu and Alchfrith… it had some sort of meaning to her… she had shown a completely different side of her while talking about them, an emotional, but nevertheless much more self-assured, calmer, balanced version of Abigail Porter.

This Abigail Porter would probably break toilets and get wet from fountains a lot less often. And she'd maybe lead a happier life…

Chance decided he needed to know what was so important about that long dead king and his family problems.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.**

On their way back from Whitby Guerrero changed seats in the bus and sat down next to the young man who had given the odd presentation in York. His name was Alan. He didn't speak much, kept a lot to himself. Not unlike Abby, but where she was nervous and unsure of herself, he appeared somewhat sinister.

The other students tried to include Abby, they invited her to sit with them during breaks, asked her how she was or just smiled at her to let her know she was welcome if she wanted to join in. Abby didn't perceive their friendliness as honest signs of interest in her, she regarded their attempts as pity and shied away from their displays of affection, but theoretically, she wouldn't have needed to be alone.

Totally different story with the young man. The others avoided him, deliberately chose tables away from him, only talked to him when absolutely necessary.

Guerrero recognized wrath and hatred when he encountered them, even if they were much better concealed under the surface of civility than in Alan's case. People like that presented a potential problem. He regarded it as his job to make sure the potential problem didn't turn into a de facto one.

"Nice ruins, huh?", Guerrero said, retrieved an apple from his jacket and started munching on it.

The young man looked at Guerrero as if he had just sprouted a second head. The expression on his face clearly underlined what his body language was practically screaming: LEAVE ME ALONE.

Guerrero took another bite from his apple, and looked at him with arched eyebrows. The coldness in his eyes left very few people unfazed. The young man was no exception to the rule. He felt the need to talk.

"_Used to be beautiful,_ the abbey", Alan hissed bitterly. "Fine example of Early English and Decorated style. Look at what's left of the church's tracery, the arcs... Imagine what it looked like when it was intact…"

His eyes were blazing with anger as he continued.

"Gothic architecture at its best. Till 1540, when Henry VIII dissolved the monastery to fill his treasury, just like he did with Rievaulx, with Fountains, with Lindisfarne... The monks were driven away. Henry's henchmen stripped the abbey of its roofs, left the interior to the weather, the rain, the wind, the snow. All for a bit of lead. And to top it all off, a rich family bought the buildings and used its stones to built their summerhouse from it. Their _summerhouse_!"

Guerrero had seen the house. It was the visitor center now, right next to the abbey. Not exactly a highlight of English architecture... but worth getting this angry over? Guerrero had seen heavily armed intoxicated bikers dealing more calmly with the destruction of their beloved Harley than this man with the destruction of a monastery five hundred years ago. Odd dude.

Winston saw the creepy young man and Guerrero sitting together and figured it made perfect sense: Guerrero always had a guy for everything, he was probably looking for a new recruit to expand his overseas army of sleazebags.

… … …

The next stop on their trip was Liverpool. They were given two hours to visit the International Slavery Museum. One of the students gave a presentation on the so-called trade triangle: European traders landed at African coasts and bought captives from native kingdoms such as the Ashanti or the Dahomey empire, who had a long tradition of hunting people to sell them off as slaves, even before the arrival of the first Europeans. The captives were transported across the Atlantic via the Middle Passage. Those who survived the trip were sold, especially to work on huge plantations. The ships then returned to Europe with goods produced by slave labor: Sugar, coffee, tobacco, rice, cotton, and the triangle started again.

Winston, however, only half-listened. The museum had many video installations in its exhibition, descendants of slaves who narrated the story of their ancestors. The conditions on the ships… the men packed together below deck, so tightly, they had to lie down or crouch the whole time in overheated, barely breathable air. When the weather was good they were forced to dance on deck, as a form of exercise. Only living people could be auctioned off, after all… Nevertheless till the 1800s one out of five captives died during the journey, from fever, dysentery, small pox. Then the French and the British government introduced stricter rules, which reduced the death rate. How nice of them.

A former slave's report of what happened once the people arrived in the Americas, however, eventually tipped Winston over the edge – families were broken up forever, the people lost their names, were forced to learn a new language and adopt new customs. In some regions the slaves received brand marks with their owners' signature. Slave owners made it a point to erase any bonds their "property" might have. They even had a word for this: "seasoning". "Stealing identity" would be more appropriate. The suicide rate among slaves was horribly high.

Frozen to the spot, Winston couldn't help but stare at the exhibits along with the video installation: Leg irons from the 18th century, a coffle that was used to secure members in a chain gang, a Wedgwood porcelain bowl made as a good luck charm for the captain of a slave ship that was to transport 250 Africans from the Cameroons to Barbados in 1786. Almost 50 died during the trip.

It's one thing to be theoretically aware of what your ancestors most likely went through. It's completely different to see it depicted so clearly. His great-great-grandfather might very well have worn one of these things…

"Bastards", a very familiar voice right next to him suddenly said.

Guerrero, face expressionless, as usual.

But yeah, "bastards" summed it up pretty nicely.

… … …

Winston fled the exhibition, left the building and stumbled outside into the bright sunshine and the brisk wind. The harbor area was full of people, but on the other hand the location was so vast, from the Royal Liver Building to the Albert Dock, that despite the hundreds of tourists it didn't feel crowded.

It all looked so beautiful – the Pier Head with the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building, all in blinding whiteness, with huge clock towers, a dome, facades in Edwardian Baroque and Italian palace style… even with statues of mythical Liver birds on top. They were magnificent to look at in their grandeur, proud monuments of economic success, nowadays considered world heritage.

But built on blood.

Many ships that transported slaves had set their sails from Liverpool.

"I could do with a drink, what about you?" Chance's hand on Winston's shoulder gently steered him into the next pub.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

Winston and Chance chose a pub located in one of Albert Dock's former warehouses – maybe because it felt a little bit like home. Of course both men would have rather endured torture from a certain expert they happened to be acquainted with than admitted that they were missing the Tenderloin office. Homesickness just wasn't for guys. But still…

One of the professors had described the style of the Dock's buildings and quayside as "cyclopean classicism" – what a term! Quite appropriate, though. Huge iron cast columns in oxblood red lined the square basin around which the various former warehouses were grouped. 1.290.000 square feet of storage space, 7.75 acres of water, 23 million bricks and 47.000 tons of mortar. Back in its day the Dock had been considered revolutionary, not only because it was the world's first non-combustible warehouse system, but also the first one that allowed loading and unloading directly from or onto the ships, without additional transport in between.

After initially letting the area fall apart during the seventies, from the eighties onwards the city had done a good job preserving this technical masterpiece. An appealing variety of cafés, shops, pubs and restaurants had found a home in the carefully restored buildings. They drew huge amounts of tourists during the day and almost just as many locals in the evening, taking a quick stroll around one of their hometown's most famous sights.

The pub was clearly catering more to tourists than to locals and at first Winston wanted to go somewhere else. There was a loud group of men in one corner, all ties and suits, exactly the "everything for the career" type he had learned to resent in his cop years. Too many of those in the state attorney's office… Aside from that he wanted to get drunk and not pay extra money just for some fancy interior design he could hardly make out in the dim light.

Chance, however, had plans. He typed a message into his cell, sent it, then ordered drinks. Even before the barkeeper had managed to hand them the glasses, the phone signaled in reply. Chance grinned.

"See this group of tourists there? The loudmouths that have been going after the waitress twice already while we're here? Don't you think they need a lesson?"

Winston was taken aback. "Chance, CCTV is all over this place…"

"What if an inexplicable technical failure cut off the video feed… right about now?" Chance pointed at one of the carefully hidden cameras. The unobtrusive green light that had given it away to Chance's trained eyes vanished just as they were looking up.

Winston had to admit, lowlife or not, Guerrero was damn good with this kind of stuff.

Nevertheless he shook his head, but not as vigorously as before. "We cannot just…"

"Look at them… call center stockbrokers on a weekend trip. Making a living out of gambling with other people's money. Talking grandmothers out of their lives' savings. Ruining family men. How many cases of desperate people have you seen who committed some kind of stupid crime to prevent their house or whatever from falling prey to the banks? And all thanks to those vultures? Come on Winston, let's have a bit of fun."

The cop in Winston protested vehemently. They were talking about physically hurting other persons, for no reason whatsoever except that they didn't like their guts. Chance was tempting him to do a bad thing… he had told himself, before he had made the offer to Chance, that he would never let that happen, that he would never let that killer pull him over to the dark side. Was this the first step?

But another voice, the one that had brought a long history of disciplinary problems on him during his police years, was doing an a capella motivational song. Suddenly he remembered all the times when some suit wearing DA had killed one of his cases for political reasons… He remembered the smirks on the faces of these people as they climbed up the career ladder… at all costs…

Damnit, this was tempting…

Chance saw the conflicted expression on Winston's face and knew what he was thinking. "Let's make a bet – there are five of those suits. One week of bathroom cleaning for the one who throws less of them into the water. The Yellow Duckmarine is still doing its round with the last batch of tourists, it'll be here soon, there won't be any problem fishing them out again. They'll get a bit wet, that's all."

Oh, that killer smile... so carefree.

One of the brokers tried to grab the waitress' backside.

That did it. Winston was only human.

"One week of cleaning up? Sounds like a deal to me."

As in most things, the key to the situation lay in speed. They had to start an argument, involve the loudmouths into a brawl and get out of the situation before the police, that someone would surely call, arrived.

Well, it wasn't that Chance hadn't done this kind of thing before… With Winston it was a first, though. But hey, that made the challenge all the more interesting, didn't it?

… … …

Five minutes later both he and Winston were with their backs to the railing of the quayside, cornered by about thirty angry stockbrokers.

"ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY!" Winston shouted at his business partner. "ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF STOCKBROKERS, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!"

"There's only one thing we can do now…", Chance said.

Police sirens were wailing in the distance.

"And that would be…?" Winston was dealing out punches left and right, but there were just too many of them. They were trapped. The gleam in his partner's eyes wasn't exactly reassuring, but whatever plan he had, it was hopefully better than getting arrested with their fake IDs…

"Trust me!", Chance yelled, grabbed Winston and pulled him backwards over the railing, headfirst into the icy-cold water.

A couple of swim strokes underwater and a bit of waiting in the shadow of a restored canal boat later it was them who got picked up by the Yellow Duckmarine. Luckily the captain of the bright yellow amphibious vehicle didn't ask too many questions. They were probably not the first American tourists he had to fish out of the basin after a bar fight. All he did was hand them towels and a blanket. Then he chauffeured them to Saithouse Quay, where their excursion bus was waiting.

Winston darkly looked at Chance as the boat slowly approached the Quay in the waning light of the sinking sun. Chance looked back at him, with an expression that indicated remorse – for about five seconds. Then he broke into a smile. Winston couldn't help it, he started smiling, too. It broadened, broadened… In the end they were both laughing. Hell, that had been fun!

Then Chance suddenly sobered up. "Thanks for not telling me that Guerrero's story about Ax doesn't add up. I know you hid it 'cause he's my friend."

Winston's mouth fell open. How the hell…?

"Did a bit of research", Chance explained.

"So you don't trust him either?"

Chance shook his head. "I trust him, always. Doesn't mean I agree with everything he does."

As the bus made its way through the night, heading towards their quarters in Manchester, Winston had a lot to think about – his ancestors, the strange relationship between Chance and Guerrero… and his own place amongst them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

The large room on the first floor of the 18th century cotton mill was not only significantly warmer than the others, it also felt somewhat damper. Their guide explained that to prevent the cotton from tearing all the time, the temperature and air moisture was kept like this on purpose. Back when Quarry Bank Mill had been in actual operation the warmth and the humidity in here had been even higher. She then set the spinning machine in motion and ear-shattering noise filled the air.

Guerrero thoughtfully looked at the amount of cotton fibers that flew up from the threads within the two minutes the guide was keeping the machine running, at the overall whiteness of the room that the yarn and cloths produced and at the many moving parts of the engine. He knew enough about human anatomy not to be surprised to hear that pulmonary diseases, color blindness, deafness and lost limbs were common occupational hazards among the workers of the cotton mill.

Work shifts lasted twelve hours. The youngest workers were nine years old. With their small built they were perfect to sweep up the cotton fibers from underneath the machines. While they were running, of course. Every stopping of the engines meant loss of profit, so the engines were only stopped when one of the workers got caught in it. Before bonnets and caps became mandatory, many children were scalped when their hair became entangled with one of the moving parts.

Another guide led them to the apprentice house, also located on the premises. Many of the children who worked in the mill were orphans or abandoned children who came from workhouses all over England. The mill owner paid the workhouse a certain sum and received a bunch of kids in return that were legally bound to work for him as long as their apprenticeship lasted – about a decade.

"Abandoned children?", Abby asked the guide as they stepped into the first room of the apprentice house, a murky chamber with a tiny window that let in little light, although it was noon on a bright, rather sunny day. After their twelve hour work shift, the kids received lessons in writing and math here. For two hours. Before dinner.

"Many children in the workhouses labeled as "orphans" were actually given up by their families, because the parents couldn't afford to feed so many mouths. Or they were the results of an illegitimate relationship…", the guide shrugged.

"And the parents didn't care what happened to their children… they weren't worth it…", Abby muttered as they climbed steep steps to the girls' dormitory – an average attic with a tiny window that had once been home to sixty girls. Two in one bed, chamber pots and straw for sanitation, the door was locked at night… The thick bundles of herbs that could still be seen dangling from the roof had not been intended for decoration.

"Are you okay?", Chance asked Abby as they made their way to the apprentice house's kitchen. She looked very white.

In the kitchen the guide explained that the children had received three meals a day – porridge for breakfast, two hours after their work shift had started, then porridge again for lunch and in the evening, after school, some sort of stew, once or twice a week with meat. The food was cooked till it reached a very stiff consistency. Since handing out plates and spoons to all those children would have been way too complicated, the overseer of the apprentice house had come up with a much more timesaving solution to feed them: All they had to do was hold out their hand and then the cook put a generous spoonful into it, so they could lick the food right off their palm.

This did it. Abby excused herself and hurriedly left the room, the house, the factory's premises. She fled as far as she could, down some National Trust path that led her into a forest. Chance found her sitting on a fallen tree.

"They keep saying the children at this mill had better lives than in other factories", she whispered as he cautiously walked up to her. Silent tears were running down her face. "They received an education and were not beaten. Many stayed way after their apprentice years, one boy later even became the mill's chief bookkeeper. But where else should they have gone? Without families? Without parents that wanted them, loved them?"

Consoling crying women had never been a part of Chance's old job description and he still felt a bit awkward in these kind of situations, but as the Katherine ordeal had taught him, sometimes it was best not to say anything anyway, just to be there and provide company. He silently sat down next to her.

The thought of Katherine touched him like a breath of cold air, though, and a shadow fell on his face that Abby misinterpreted as annoyance with her emotional behavior.

"Well, thank God the 18th century is long gone", she said briskly, jumped up almost as soon as he had sat down and brushed imaginary dirt from her long skirt. The unexpected shift of weight sent the tree rolling. Chance managed to get on his feet just in time before the whole thing crashed down the embankment and into the river at its foot with a spectacular splash.

Chance was unharmed, but that didn't do much to console Abby: "God, I'm such a worthless idiot."

… … …

In the apprentice house the guided tour was still not over yet. The guide had brought them to the room where sick children had been kept to prevent their illness from spreading. The mill had had its own doctor and the workers had been provided with free medical care, something that was rarely heard of in the 18th century. He had applied exactly three types of treatment methods: Leeches in cases of fever, molasses that worked as a laxative, and so-called "blisters". These were small pouches filled with herbs to treat head- or toothaches. Sounds harmless enough, but they carried their name for a reason: The pouches were heated, then pressed against the aching area till, well, a large blister appeared which then was opened. The pain from that procedure definitely made you forget about the original pain…

"A whole new world of ideas for you, huh?", Winston asked Guerrero bitterly, seeing his thoughtful face.

"Herbs are too easy to track", Guerrero replied absent-mindedly, "but the molasses sounds promising."

Winston harrumphed in triumphant indignity. Oh how well he knew that rat's thought processes!

As they walked back to the bus, Guerrero looked at the mill one more time and couldn't help but marvel that it was still standing.

Built on blood. All of it.

Had he been brought here, he'd have burnt the hellhole down.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

The cathedral of Ripon, as it could be seen nowadays, was the fourth church to be standing on that site. Ever since AD 672 people were coming to this place to worship – and to destroy: King Eadred and William the Conqueror, just to name the two most prominent barbarians who had laid hands on the building. But while Eadred and William had long turned into dust, the cathedral was still standing proudly – with traces of its predecessors enshrined in its mighty walls, for example the 7th century crypt dating back to St. Wilfrid's days.

So who had taken a beating but come out on top at the end? Again, Guerrero couldn't help but feel a certain kinship to the building.

While it looked fairly plain from the outside (because some 19th century barbarian had done away with the medieval tracery of the Early English gothic western front), even a little rough and sinister, the interior was mind-blowing. Guerrero walked through the gray arch that separated the Canon's choir from the rest of the church, than stopped dead in his tracks. He knew a thing or two about knives and carving and couldn't help but stare at the 15th century choir stalls in front of the main altar. If he had been anyone but "Guerrero", he'd have let his mouth fall open.

He had read somewhere that the carvings on the choir's stalls and bench ends had inspired Lewis Carroll while writing Alice in Wonderland. Back then he had dismissed the story as folklore, designed to attract more tourists, but seeing this now… nobody needed to invent stories about the cathedral. It spoke for itself. The longer he looked, the more details he could make out and the more complicated the picture got – cockatrices, elephants, monkeys, lions and centaurs adorned the different bench ends. The whole thing displayed an ever ongoing struggle between the forces of good and evil.

Guerrero slowly moved closer, squinted his eyes… the seats of the choir stalls were tip-up seats. The medieval Canons, for whom the whole choir was reserved, hadn't been supposed to sit down very often while in church, only during the Epistle, the Gradual at Mass and the Responses at Vespers. The rest of the time they had either been standing or kneeling.

Well, Canons usually were old men, back then just as well as nowadays – standing for a long time is hard on the knees, so ledges were attached to the underside of the seats that allowed the Canon to take the weight off his legs but technically still remain in proper upright standing position. These ledges were called "misericords" and, as Guerrero discovered, richly carved as well. He recognized scenes from the bible but, much to his surprise, also a mermaid, a pig playing bagpipes, a man pushing a woman in a cart, a preaching fox and a griffin with human legs. Guerrero almost laughed out loud – this choir didn't only portray the light and darkness of human life, it also showed its insanity, its irony, its ridiculousness…

Not to mention that a misericord was also a small dagger, used to deliver a a death stroke to a fatally wounded enemy...

Damn, this was art if he had ever seen some.

… … …

Winston was keeping an eye on Abby, so Chance could take a closer look at Alan, who had grown more and more foul-mooded and sinister during the past few days of the excursion. When Chance spotted him in one of the flanking aisles of the cathedral, however, he didn't look sinister at all. He was sitting in one of the benches and crying, staring at the wall in front of him.

The walls in Ripon cathedral were covered with gravestones and memorial plates, erected by mourning relatives in remembrance of their loved ones. The plate the young man was staring at with tears in his eyes consisted of white marble and dated back to the mid-19th century:

_Dedicated to the memory of a beloved brother _

_Too early removed from the pains of this vale of tears_

_As it may be humbly hoped_

_To an eternal inheritance in heaven_

Chance debated sitting down next to him and cautiously asking him what was going on, but Alan took the decision from him. He suddenly shot up from his seat, wiped his tears away and stomped off, muttering to himself. What he was saying was pretty unintelligible, but one phrase Chance could make out very clearly: "end this now".

Uh-oh.

Alan walked up to the stall where the "Friends of the Cathedral" sold tickets that allowed access to the central tower.

Big uh-oh.

Now, Chance had dealt with suicide candidates before, had even managed to talk some of them out of their decision, but it was a risky business. People who were determined enough to climb over the railing of a bridge or onto the ledge of a skyscraper tended to make rash, impulsive, unfortunately irreversible decisions.

The best way to stop suicide candidates from graduating to suicides was to keep them away from heights altogether. Of course, in the long run that didn't solve the problem, but that was the psychiatrists' job. In the acute moment of danger, remaining on solid ground was definitely a lot less risky than on top of a 50 feet high tower – which, in itself, was on top of a rather high roof.

Chance quickly drew out some cash to get a ticket – nothing would have been worse in that situation than to be stopped by an overzealous Friend of the Cathedral.

Well, nice plan, but…

"I'm afraid sir you'll have to wait a couple of minutes", the woman behind the counter informed him with an apologizing smile.

"Excuse me?"

"Only twelve people are allowed on top of the tower at a time. As soon as someone comes down, you can go up. Health and safety regulations, sir."

Talk about the irony of life…

Now Chance had to make a quick decision – wait and risk that the next _someone to come down_ would be Alan, just without using the stairs, or try to get up the tower without permission and risk getting stopped? Well, the Friend of the Cathedral at the entrance to the staircase was approximately eighty years old and he was wearing a long, flowing robe. All in all his chances were pretty good he'd make it past him.

Just then a tourist came dashing down the stairs: "Help, we need help! There's a…."

Chance didn't waste time on hearing the end of the man's cry. He raced up the steps as fast as possible, taking two at a time, almost losing his balance because they were so worn.

The door to the tower's top was open, bright sunlight blinded him as he had finally reached his destination. Alan! Where was Alan? Chance expected to find him balancing on one of the battlements.

Oh he was so wrong…

Professor Simpson was dangling dangerously over the brink, HELD by none other than Alan.

"TELL THE TRUTH!", Alan was yelling. "GODDAMN IT, TELL THE TRUTH!"


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

Alan was holding the professor by his belt. Guerrero would have probably pointed out how amateurish he was doing it, his balance was off, he'd soon tire, his fingers were going to swell from the unnatural angle and, untrained as he was, effort… There was a huge chance he wouldn't be able to withdraw them in time and thus fall down with his victim. Or at least lose a couple of fingers.

So Chance had to find a solution quickly.

He could simply charge at Alan – distract him with a sudden movement to the right, then jump at him and put the combat knife to his throat that he was always keeping attached to his ankle. He could also try the more risky version of knocking Alan out with a well-placed punch and grabbing the professor quickly, but there was the possibility that he missed the belt, only caught his shirt… judging from its looks, cheap Chinese fabric…

The safest option for now was trying to talk Alan out of whatever exactly it was that he was planning. Hostage negotiation 101. Chance figured he could try to lure him into a false feeling of companionship once he had an idea of what Alan was holding against the professor. Problem was, getting to that point was usually a long, winding process, a dance back and forth, back and forth… if Alan tired in the process…

"You killed Samuel!" Alan at this very moment shouted at the professor.

Okay, not so long and winding this time around then. Chance checked his watch. He estimated that Alan would be able to keep up his position for another five minutes or so. The key to the whole issue now was to find out as quickly as possible who that Samuel was…

"He was my best friend! We were close like brothers!"

This was going really well. What Chance needed now was some kind of surprising twist, something that threw Alan and would momentarily make him forget his anger and thirst for revenge…

"Kill him? What do you mean, _kill him_? We are trying to save him!", Professor Simpson yelled from his upside down position.

There you go… Chance was baffled. What was this, the customized-for-a-death-retardant-specialist version of a lucky day?

Alan froze, stared at the professor, opened his mouth… and pulled him up. "But he is dead! I found him in his room at the university, after he had taken all those pills… his alarm clock wouldn't stop, the walls are so paper thin there... I called the ambulance, but it was too late…"

All the wrath that had given him the strength to hold a grown man by his belt over the ledge of a tower suddenly seemed to have been drained away by the memory of that horrible morning.

"Sam was a brilliant art historian! His thesis would have been groundbreaking. But you and Percy, that bastard, discouraged him at every opportunity, till he questioned himself so much that he lost all will to live. Without a doctor's degree you're nothing in the field of art history… he felt it was all over… YOU made him feel it was all over!"

Alan charged at the professor again, but Chance hadn't let his guard down. One quick tackle and the young man was pinned to the floor.

Professor Simpson, now definitely out of danger, let out a deep breath of relief. Then he kneeled down by Alan's side. "You've got it all wrong, son. We weren't discouraging him, we were _en_couraging him. You're right, he was truly brilliant and his ideas were amazing. He would have revolutionized the field of art history. But Sam was also deeply troubled… as his friend I'm sure you know about his difficult childhood… the abuse he suffered at home…"

Pain darkened Alan's face and Chance cautiously loosened his grip on him. He would be able to get him back under full control within seconds, should he decide to attack again, but for now grief was holding him down much more thoroughly than Chance ever could.

"He had managed to get away from his violent father, but the damage had been done", Professor Percy added, standing on the threshold of the entrance to the rooftop. "Samuel was suffering from a pathologically low self-esteem. The more we told him how great he was doing, the more he doubted himself. He was putting himself under enormous pressure and in the end, when his thesis was finally finished, he apparently felt he couldn't face our verdict, convinced that he was going to fail. He killed himself the night before the day he was supposed to hand it in."

Chance could feel Alan's muscles slacken from sadness. They were telling the truth and the young man knew it. Probably had known it from the very beginning. But when you lose someone who is close to you… in a way Chance was grateful that he knew Baptiste was Katherine's killer. At least this way he knew whom to hate.

"You said you were trying to save him…", Chance prompted Professor Simpson.

The professor sighed. "I was taking a bit of artistic liberty with that sentence", he explained, the look on his face just as sad as Alan's. "We are trying to save Samuel's memory. I need to show you something…"

He reached into his jacket and produced a worn, slightly crumpled photo. It showed a sparsely furnished room, typical student hall of residence style – old, signs of decades of usage and no one really caring: A loose cable was coming out of the wall, stains everywhere… Samuel's room.

"The only personal item in this room is the laptop", Professor Percy, who had joined his colleague, explained. "This is where Samuel kept his thesis – the only version of his thesis. No backup copies on an external hard drive, nothing. Before he died he installed a malicious computer program that will destroy all data on it if the wrong password gets entered. In his last e-mail to us he wrote: "You want my thesis? Take a look at my last tour!"

"Explains the odd route we've taken", Guerrero, who had arrived with the second professor but kept himself in the shadows, in case Chance needed backup after all, chimed in. "He made you follow his tracks and you used this excursion so the university would pay the expenses… Like that."

Both professors made gestures of embarrassed apology. They were only human after all.

"He probably felt so inferior, by forcing you to try and find the password he was exerting power over you, from the grave. Pretty messed up dude… You've got that laptop here?"

... ... ...

An hour later they were sitting in Professor Percy's room, watching Guerrero hacking Sam's laptop.

"Not exactly state of the art…."

"Police refused to hack the laptop. They said there was no need to waste tax payer's money since it was a clear case of suicide…", Professor Simpson explained.

"Dude hadn't hidden the password anywhere… it consists of the first letter of every site he had visited. Y for York, C for Castle Howard…" Guerrero accessed a file and opened a document. "Here's the thesis."

Chance and Guerrero left the two professors and Alan. All three were already so deeply immersed in Samuel's last work that they didn't even say good-bye.

"Alan went through great lengths to somehow avenge his friend", Chance mumbled as they descended the stairs, on their way to finally relieve Winston from looking after Abby.

"Would do the same, bro."

Chance knew that sometime soon he would have to ask Guerrero why he had wanted them to go on this trip, why he had been so insistent… what his dealings with Ax were… but not now.

Chance slowly nodded and Guerrero knew this was his way of saying "me, too".


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

In the early 1930's a young archaeologist stood on a hill near the village of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, England. He was overlooking soft green fields, sparkling with dew in the early morning light.

Actually it was the dew that interested him most, since it didn't sparkle in the same way everywhere. There was one particular field, not far from the hill he was standing on where the dew accumulated in curious patterns, rectangles and long parallel lines, to be exact.

This was the field he had set his heart on and if everything went well at the auction in the early afternoon, he'd buy it.

It did go well and when he got married a few months later what he brought into the marriage was a huge field that he suspected had once been the site of a Roman fort. He was planning to excavate it one by one and probably hoped his wife would soon give birth to a couple of sons – he needed a dig team after all.

His wife, one could say, was of the patient kind. If she minded her husband spending every free minute digging around in a field, there's no official record of it. And sons they did have. Along their father's side they found the first remains of what later became clear was indeed an ancient Roman auxiliary fort, in its earliest forms dating back to the 1st century AD.

Its name was Vindolanda.

Later a trust was founded that took over ownership, financed and protected the ruins, but the family nevertheless remained connected to the site – the sons kept overseeing excavations long after their father had passed away and they were followed by their own sons, daughters, nephews and nieces, all playing some sort of a role either actively digging or doing bureaucratic work.

All for Vindolanda.

Winston, hearing that story, couldn't help but think that Michele would have given him a good kick in the butt.

Chance, however, was more fascinated by Vindolanda's most famous found pieces: Wooden tablets, postcard size, with handwritten notes on them. They were used for communication among the soldiers of the fort and between the civilians of the village at the gates of the fort and the soldiers. A bit like today's text messages, just without the cell phones. Roman soldiers officially weren't allowed to get married or have children while serving in the army, but unofficially they very often lived in steady relationships and liked to keep their families close by.

Originally the tablets had been in use everywhere in the Roman Empire, but only at Vindolanda they had survived thanks to the oxygen-deficient soil of the site and other lucky circumstances. One of the tablets, tablet number 628, read:

_Masclus to Cerialis his king, greeting. Please, my lord, give instructions as to what you want us to have done tomorrow. Are we to return with the standard to - the crossroads all together or every other one of us -most fortunate and be well-disposed towards me. Farewell. My fellow-soldiers have no beer. Please order some to be sent._

Unfortunately not the complete text had been restorable, but the part with the beer…. Somehow it suddenly dawned on Chance that Roman soldiers had been real people, too, not just characters from a history book. Real people, men who wanted a bit of a drink after a long day of marching and standing guard…

His thoughts went back to the reenactment group in York and a slight shiver went down his spine. Shivers were not his thing, though, and thus he tried not to dwell on what he might or might not have seen. Instead he concentrated on the ruins of the pre-Hadrianic military bath house right in front of him and the information board that explained them. Bath houses were where everyone in the fort came together, not simply to wash but to socialize, to relax, to play board games and talk.

Real people…

Guerrero was standing a little away from the group, keeping an eye on Abby, who had seemed unnaturally pale and shaky all morning. They were both looking at the rectangular remains of a barrack room. It looked like dozens of other rooms they had excavated around here, but this one was special for a very sad reason – a couple of years ago they had found the bones of an eight to ten year old girl in one of its corners. The skeleton had had its hands still tied… an 1800 years old murder victim.

Some researchers challenged that interpretation, but Guerrero looked at the corner, read the passage in which the position of the body was described carefully, imagined what the room must have looked like back when the fort had still been standing, especially the floor level, and it all made sense. He had hidden bodies just like that.

Real people…

The story of the unknown girl seemed to touch Abby deeply. Guerrero could practically see her pale as she read the text on the information board, her already unnaturally white skin took on the color of wax and her eyes filled with tears.

What the hell was wrong with that chick?

Guerrero decided that this was definitely not his field of expertise and looked around for Chance. Instead of his friend, however, he noticed Winston, watching him again. Anger rose in Guerrero. Damn that Walrus, sticking his nose into other people's business. He had asked around about Ax, knew that things were not as he had made them appear to be… Only question was, why hadn't he told Chance yet? Guerrero would have imagined Winston running to him the moment he had found out what Ax was really doing. What kind of a game was he playing?

The only thing that kept him from a nice little heart-to-heart chat with ex-cop-current-pain-in-the-ass was Chance.

Guerrero took a deep breath. Chance. He was really trying to make this work. For him. But if Winston kept nosing around…

Just then one of the professors announced that they were going to visit Hadrian's Wall next and that would take a little walk there.

Good thing they had already cleared the issue with Alan and he was now at peace with the professors, otherwise the terrain surrounding the Wall would have been perfect for him to exert revenge on them. Steep drop-offs everywhere.

Speaking of… it was probably not a good idea to let accident-prone Abby out of arm's length while walking around there. Guerrero spotted Chance by the ruins of the bath house and sent him a text message.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

"We estimated we could manage seven miles in two hours", Professor Simpson told Winston.

Winston took a long look at the steep hills stretching in front of them. A narrow, craggy footpath went right along Hadrian's Wall, climbing and falling steadily just like the ancient wall, sometimes with a difference in altitude of one hundred feet or more.

Gray rainclouds were gathering in the distance, three quarters of the members of the excursion group were untrained people in their mid-fifties and at least half a dozen of them either hadn't read the note about wearing appropriate footwear or had no idea what exactly that meant.

Winston wondered if the professor was joking.

Judging from the gleam in his eyes as he was lovingly studying the Hadrian's Wall's roughly hewn gray stones, he was not. Seriously, who could resist the magnetic attraction of an ancient stone wall and waste thought on such mundane things as realistic hiking distances when there was a Roman pathway to explore, dating back to 122 AD?

Even in flat country seven miles in two hours would have been optimistic, mildly put. Up there, with that group in that weather, it was extremely unrealistic. Winston decided he needed to convince the professors to change their plans. Maybe Chance could back him up…

"Told the bus driver to pick us up at a hostel down at the main road two and a half miles from here", Guerrero mumbled as Winston passed him by on his way to Chance. Winston stopped and stared at him, open-mouthed. Guerrero raised an eyebrow in what to Winston looked like a provocative manner.

What was the rat up to now?

"Couldn't you have told me beforehand?", he grumbled.

Chance, meanwhile, was a bit ahead of the rest of the group, in close pursuit of Abby, who seemed quite intend on actually covering seven miles in two hours. She was rushing along the Wall with practically no regard to the difficult terrain. When they reached a particularly narrow spot with nothing but a steep drop-off to the right and the Wall to the left, he had enough. He grabbed her by the shoulders and stopped her.

"What has gotten into you?"

She didn't answer. Her shoulders were shaking under his hands. Chance turned her around, slowly, and now he could see that tears were streaming down her face.

"I can so understand Alan's friend. This Samuel who killed himself. Life doesn't make any sense when you're worthless."

Chance took a deep breath. This discussion was taking a turn that shouldn't be discussed while standing on a narrow path with a gaping abyss in close proximity.

"Come on", he gently told her. "There's a mile castle not far from here, I think we should rest there for a while."

Abby let her eyes roam the countryside, the drop-off, the green fields and the huge stones scattered at its base.

Chance readied himself to lunge forward and pin her to the Wall, should the need arise.

At this very moment the wind carried the noise of the approaching rest of the excursion group towards them. They'd soon be there…

Abby decided she was not one for public drama, nodded and trudged ahead, further along the path, in fast, long strides, determined to get away from them.

The Romans had erected mile castles all along the Hadrian's Wall. They were meant to guard gateways through the Wall, collect taxes and controll the passage of people, goods and livestock across the frontier. The one Abby and Chance reached after a couple of minutes was exceptionally well preserved. Almost all of the thick walls of the building were still in place, providing them with a corner that sheltered them from the wind and the beginning rainfall. A couple of sheep huddled around them, seeking refuge as well.

Chance quickly put on his oversized rain cape, cautiously took hold of Abby's shoulders again and pulled her to the ground. She looked at him wide-eyed and a bit confused. Confusion became bewilderment when he pressed a finger to her lips and held her in a tight embrace underneath the warm cover of his cape.

Her initial reaction was to struggle, but it was so comfortably warm in his arms, his scent, a soothing mixture of aftershave and musk, was surrounding her, his heartbeat and breathing set a calming rhythm… she melted against his body.

Noises outside her refuge indicated that the rest of the excursion group was passing by and had apparently just decided to break the tour off. The bus would be waiting for them at some sort of Youth Hostel. Now Abby understood why he had signaled her to remain still. The last thing she needed right now were other group members, asking her what was going on and why she was up in tears.

When the noises finally faded away, Chance removed his finger from Abby's lips. "Now tell me", he said.

… … …

As much as Winston hated the idea of getting wet in that darn English rain, he decided he just couldn't leave Chance alone at the Hadrian's Wall. Yeah, he had his assassin training and all, but still. The wind was getting stronger and he already knew him well enough to suspect he'd probably give his jacket to Abby to protect her instead of putting his own health first. The man had an unsettling tendency to disregard his own needs.

With a rather heavy heart, Winston watched the bus drive off, then turned back to the Wall up on the hill he had just come down.

"Come on, dude, what are you waiting for? The longer we're standing around, the muddier the path gets." Guerrero, waiting in the shadow of a huge Hawthorne bush, burning storm lantern in hand. Where the hell had he gotten that thing?

Not waiting for Winston's reply, he started marching back in the direction of the Wall.

… … …

After Abby had told Chance what had happened prior to the trip and what had weighed her down so much throughout the excursion, what had made her react so emotionally on Alchfrith's problems and the life of the children at the Quarry Bank Mill, she was exhausted. He slowly rubbed her back till her ragged breathing grew steadier and the sobs died down. After a while she fell asleep, cuddled against his chest.

Poor girl.

Everything made sense now.

He decided to let her sleep for a while and then find the path to the youth hostel Guerrero had mentioned. Darkness was falling quickly and the path was getting slippery, but should problems arise he had his cell and could place a collect call.

Suddenly goose bumps rose on his skin. A temperature drop? Whoa, and quite a significant one. He could suddenly see his breath turn white. Despite Abby's body heat Chance suddenly felt cold. The sheep huddled closer together.

Chance scanned the darkness. It felt like someone was out there, maybe a late hiker… no. A rider. A gray rider on a gray, sturdy horse, barely bigger than a pony. He wore a helmet with a crest holder and his cloak was billowing behind him although there was no wind. About a dozen men on foot were following him, completely gray as well. Another reenactment group? Chance would have very much liked to believe that, but then the whole group marched right through one of the ten feet thick walls of the mile castle and all rational explanations evaporated.

When his cell signaled at that very moment, he jumped so hard, he woke Abby.

… … …

Finding Chance and Abby wasn't too difficult, Chance texted Winston their location and they made it down the hill and into the safety of a cab right before a thunderstorm set in. Nobody said much during the ride. Abby seemed exhausted but a lot less upset than she had been prior to the walk, making Winston wonder what exactly Chance had done with her in that mile castle. Of course asking while she was still listening was out of the question. Chance himself, however, seemed a little lost in thought. He kept staring off into the darkness.

When they finally arrived at the hall of residence they were staying at, all of them longed for a shower. Their accommodation unfortunately only provided group showers. Winston hated the idea of having to share a shower room with Guerrero, but he was absolutely sure that lowlife would cheat, should they draw straws. In the end the three of them went in there at once. It turned out the room was actually quite cozy and thanks to the hot water easy to turn into a makeshift sauna, something they could all do with after the day they had had.

"Looks like Abby tried to find her real father prior to the excursion", Chance explained, sitting on the room's walled heating, back to back with the others. "She hired a private detective who did some digging. Must have been one of the good ones… One day he came to her, rather shaky, and told her, he had found her real father but the father wanted to have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with her. Well, she had lived all her life with the feeling that she was unwanted and now she had proof… Kind of sent her over the edge."

"What did you tell her?", Winston asked. He had lost his father early, growing up without him had been hard. How much harder would it have been with the knowledge that he hadn't loved his child?

"I told her that sometimes the only way to protect your loved ones is to stay away from them. And that her father gave away an enormously valuable thing to make sure she'd be protected on a trip he feared would be dangerous for her, with her accident-prone nature."

"What valuable thing?", Winston asked, frowning.

Chance hesitated for a moment, then decided he needed to let Winston in on it. "A favor from the most dangerous man in California. Guerrero."

"Dude…" Guerrero growled. He didn't need the cop's understanding.

Winston, however, suddenly realized why Guerrero had been so insistent on taking this particular job: He had owed Ax a favor.

"And you owed it to him because we couldn't pay you after the last job, right?", Winston mumbled.

"Always wanted to see England, dude."

Chance turned on one of the hot showers again and they all stretched out in the moist warm air.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

Since it was clear now that nothing was threatening Abby except her own clumsiness, Chance decided he could leave her in Guerrero's and Winston's care as the excursion group was getting ready for the bus trip to the last stop of the journey, Holy Island Lindisfarne. There was something he felt he needed to do, but he definitely preferred to keep the exact nature of his little private outing to himself.

Had he let them know, Winston would have laughed his ass off and Guerrero would have probably filed it away for later use as leverage.

No, thank you.

He fed them some vague story about a friend he wanted to see before returning to the States, waved them good-bye and took a bus back to Vindolanda.

Guerrero, of course, didn't believe him for a second, but he decided to let it slide. Chance had known something had been fishy about his insistence to take this particular job, but he hadn't confronted him about it, he had trusted him and waited till he had found the correct explanation. Lesser men would have jumped to conclusions…

Speaking of…

The walrus had nosed around behind his back, seriously not cool. Activating his police connections to find out if his story about Ax had been true? In Guerrero's book that called for retaliation… On the other hand… Winston had not shied away from going back to Hadrian's Wall in darkness and rain to get Chance. That meant something in Guerrero's book, too. Ah well, an opportunity for some sort of adequate payback would surely present itself.

Winston didn't believe Chance either. But there was an unpleasant prickling sensation in his throat and his arms and legs felt rather heavy, while what felt like a thick cloud of wet cotton seriously impeded his ability to think clearly. He was definitely looking forward to going home. Maybe it was time to simply trust his business partner. He just hoped whatever Chance was doing was nothing illegal... or dangerous.

Strange, the "dangerous" suddenly made his stomach clench, while "illegal", in comparison...

He leaned his head against the bus window, longing for a bit of sleep. The scratching in his throat was intensifying. Chance had this tendency to pull crazy stunts… On this trip he had shown remarkable restraint so far… what if he was planning on changing that now and bringing everything back to balance with a jump off the roof of a twelve storey building or something in that direction?

Feeling that he wouldn't be able to sleep with this kind of thoughts worrying him, he took out his mobile and texted Chance a warning – _STAY AWAY FROM EXPLOSIVES, HIGH RISES AND MOVING BRIDGES_

… … …

"Your girlfriend?", the young archaeologist at Vindolanda asked Chance as his cell phone signaled, sighing inwardly. _All the good ones are usually taken. _

"Overprotective aunt", he smiled, texting _Don't worry, I'm on ground level_ back. Then he switched his cell off, so that Winston's reply – _WITH YOU THAT IS FAR FROM REASSURING_ – remained unread.

The woman's eyes were glued to the small scar on his chin; it provided his face with just the right amount of ruggedness to keep him from looking like Barbie Ken – damn, that man was good-looking. Granted, his request was a little weird, but that scar… she shrugged. "Of course I can write you an official Roman transfer home order."

"In Latin? On a wooden tablet, just like the ones you dug out? I'd need two of them…"

He gave her a boyish smile so bright, she'd have written the telephone book of London in classical Latin on wooden tablets, had he asked her.

The writing of the tablets didn't take that long, having drinks with her, however, took a while, and so did going back to Hadrian's Wall and placing one of the tablets in a crack in a wall of the mile castle. _Official order for all soldiers of the Roman Empire still on duty to go home immediately. You are herewith released from all your duties_, it read, in Latin, of course. He put the other one in an envelope and addressed it to the guide in York Minster, with the instruction to leave it near the Treasurer's House. Hopefully he wouldn't find the request too weird.

Maybe this was ridiculous.

Maybe it finally sent the men home who still roamed this country, lost in the maze of history.

Chance decided he could live with taking this risk.

… … …

It was early afternoon when he finally arrived at Lindisfarne. Abby was sitting in the ruins of the monastery, another victim of Henry VIII's suppression. The sun was shining and she was stretched out on the soft grass that covered the ground of the former priory.

"Look up", she told him as he approached. "This is called the Rainbow Arch."

Chance turned his head and realized he was standing directly underneath a single, decorated vault-rib, the last remnant of the now vanished crossing tower dating back to the 12th century.

"Even if we never meet or speak", Abby said, eyes wandering along the arch, "my father and I are still connected. He didn't scare the detective off because I am worthless to him but on the contrary, because I mean a lot to him… do you know the legend about St. Cuthbert and the otters?"

Chance looked at her and couldn't help but smile – this was a totally different Abby than the sad and lost woman who had kept stumbling over her own feet and right into disaster.

"One day Cuthbert waded deep into the sea", Abby explained. "He prayed all through the night. At the first light of dawn he returned to the shore where he knelt for more prayer. Suddenly two otters came, dried his bare feet with their fur and then snuggled against his body to warm him. This is a bit like what my father did for me. He sent you to keep me safe."

Abby was at peace with the world that day at Lindisfarne.

And so was Chance. They had really helped her.

He could have done with a couple of St. Cuthbert's otters, though. Just like Winston his throat was feeling a little sandpaperish that afternoon and once they were home it turned into a full blown flu.

Guerrero ordered both of them to stay at the office, placed Winston on the sofa in Chance's living-room and Chance in his bed.

"I know a great home remedy", he told them.

"Not the _old family recipe _stuff you're using during interrogations?", Chance asked, slightly alarmed tremble in his voice.

"I'll water it down."

Grinning, Guerrero started rummaging around in the kitchen, knowing that walrus upstairs had listened in to their conversation.

Chance would get some hot lemonade and leg compresses.

Winston however…

_Retaliation… _

THE END


End file.
